Mirror's Glow
by BookwormDragon
Summary: A collection of unrelated, unbetaed oneshots and developed plot bunnies for Firefly/Serenity


**Traveling Doctor  
By BookwormDragon**

_**Disclaimer**__: Neither the Firefly/Serenity Universe nor any of the Characters in the Firefly/Serenity_ _Universe belong to me. No profit is made from this story on my part. No copyright infringement is intended.

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She stumbles across him in the open-air market on Pelorum, a resort planet that caters to the Core Worlds, providing all types of entertainment, both for the obscenely wealthy and for the average prosperous Core Worlder looking for a little thrill. It is a place where the genteel Civilization of the Core Worlds mixes with the rougher ways of the Rim worlds, at least from a Core Worlder's point of view. A place to enjoy the "rustic" flavor of Rim-world life without actually leaving behind the safety and comfort of the Core Worlds.

She is here for the Health Spas, to steady her nerves, but when some of her friends invite her on an outing to the open-air market near the public docks – located in a rougher area of town, unlike the private docks used by the wealthy – she agrees. Spa life may steady the nerves, but it's also very boring.

If it weren't for his voice, low and intense as he haggles with one of the merchants (_haggles! Like a peasant!),_ she would never even have given him a second glance.

He's wearing sturdy, mass-produced clothes and leather in muted colors, like most of the other men here, with a broad-brimmed hat (_so plebian!)_ to keep off the sun. Most shocking of all, he wears a gun-belt with unconscious ease, as if it has become a part of him. He looks strong and confident – dangerous – so different from the son she remembers.

For a moment, she thinks that she's made a mistake. Surely the shy, awkward, refined son she remembers would never take up weapons or dress like a commoner?

Then he turns a bit, so that she can see the profile of his face, and any doubt slides away. This is her son.

"Simon, Simon Tam!"

He stiffens slightly, and his hand casually drops to rest on the gun at his hip, but he otherwise ignores her.

Fury slides through her, hot and sharp. How _dare_ he ignore her, his own Mother, after all he's put her through? Just who does he think he is?

*

When Simon hears a woman's voice call out his birth name, a spike of alarm shoots through him, causing him to casually reach for the reassuring weight of his gun.

No one calls him by that name any more: to outsiders, he is Dr. Reynolds, "Doc" Reynolds, or, rarely, "Doc" Simon or Simon Reynolds. Never Tam. Never. To the crew, he is Simon, or "Doc", or Doctor. They don't ever call him Tam anymore, and most certainly not in public.

It's just easier that way. Simon and River Tam are dead, and with them, any embarrassment that their continued existence might cause the government. Pardons are all well and good, but the powerful have a long memory, especially concerning those whom they see as a threat. The fiction of their deaths permits everyone to rewrite history to best suit themselves, and that's just fine with him.

And even if some of the folks they know and do business with suspect the real identity of the Doctor and his sister, they keep it to themselves – the services he provides are too valuable, and too desperately needed, to risk on a careless word.

He doesn't even look like the old Simon Tam, wealthy and sheltered core-worlder, anymore. His nose was broken in a brawl on some no-name moon, and he hasn't bothered to re-break and set it straight (or rather, he doesn't trust River to do the job right. Who knows what kind of moon-brained ideas she might get, with him unconscious and at her mercy?). He wears a neatly trimmed beard and mustache these days, as well. It makes him look older and has the added advantage of obscuring his identity.

If someone had once told him that he would be a traveling frontier doctor, pulling teeth, birthing babies, and giving shots, he would have laughed in disbelief. It wasn't that he didn't believe in good works when he was younger – he did – it was just that a man of his station did good works by donating to a reputable charity, not by leaving behind civilization and getting his hands dirty.

Of course, the Simon Tam of today feels very differently about the whole matter.

It had all begun for him while they were refitting Serenity at the Alliance's expense, thanks to the Operative's guilty conscience. Simon had understood the necessity of going along with the man's penance, but that didn't mean he had to like it. The Alliance had cost him and his sister everything. They had tortured and murdered, and they were going to get away with it. Wash and Book were dead because of them. It wasn't fair, and it wasn't right, but it was the way life was.

Maybe he couldn't go against the Alliance directly, but the Operative's guilt had been deep - it had been surprisingly easy to get carte' blanche to restock the on-board infirmary from the fleet's supplies. Of course, Simon's definition of restock and the Operative's definition of restock had had little in common. He had carried away everything that wasn't bolted down, regardless of whether or not the Serenity actually needed it. Expensive diagnostic machines, sealers, painkillers, antibiotics, antiseptics, vaccines: crates and crates full of medical supplies of all types. He had enlisted River's help to find places to stow all the excess - by the time he was finished, there wasn't an empty corner on the ship that wasn't stuffed full of medical supplies. He didn't even feel guilty about it - the Fleet would be able to restock quickly, and they routinely overstocked anyway. Most of what he took would probably have been destroyed after expiring instead of actually being used - practically criminal when you considered the fact that there were people on the outer worlds who would have sold themselves into slavery just to afford vaccines for their children.

Cost-wise, Serenity was carrying the equivalent of her weight in water, which was far more valuable than gold on most border worlds. Suddenly, she was welcomed anywhere, greeted with enthusiasm and joy. None of them felt comfortable charging desperate folks the true value of the needed medicines (they weren't in the business of trading in human flesh), but they still needed to eat and buy fuel, so compromises had to be made.

With time, they have fallen into an agreeable arrangement: they charge full price for luxury medicines and procedures (such a cosmetic surgery), and what folks can afford on a case-by-case basis for the rest. And they don't just dispense medicine: Simon actually spends most of his time teaching the local doctors, medics, and healers the newest methods. Sometimes his students are actual doctors themselves, but it's far more likely that they're just regular folk who have a knack for helping sick people and no formal training at all.

It's a far cry from the hair-raising adventures of the old days, and they'll never get wealthy on it, but they're generally satisfied with their lives. It could be a lot worse, after all.

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**Author's Note: **This is my attempt at looking at life after Serenity. Also, at exploring the changes that Simon has undergone. But I can't seem to get past this point, so here it is.


End file.
